May 10, 2010 11:49 PM | By Ivor Chipkin. Time live

The Big Read:There is renewed interest in the question of whether “South Africans” exist. Both the Helen Suzman Foundation and the Gordon Institute for Business Science have recently made the question the topic of public debate.

Since 1996, the year of the promulgation of South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution, the South African government has had to work hard to overcome a deep-seated scepticism about the very existence of a “South African society”.

During the apartheid period, it was axiomatic to the government and its supporters that South African society referred to a white society. A unitary South African society that included blacks was not simply anathema, it was not a “social fact”. “Blacks” were members of their own communities – conceived originally as “tribes” and from the 1970s as “nations”.

Contrast this with the very premise of the anti-apartheid struggle, at least as it was organised by the ANC after 1955. The centrepiece of ANC thinking after the Freedom Charter was that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white”.

Yet, for all its poetry, the Freedom Charter poses an impossibly difficult question. The idea that South Africans formed a common people made it sensible to think about the time after apartheid as the time of a single, unitary state – instead of a constellation of Bantustans, say.

But “non-racialism” raised other difficulties. It presupposed that those responsible for implementing and sustaining a brutal system of domination could be integrated harmoniously into a common society with those whom they had subjugated.

The solution of 1994 was to rewrite the history of apartheid from a situation of racial oppression into one of multicultural intolerance. On these terms, the challenge of national reconciliation became one of tolerating “diversity”.

One of the commentators on this question, Eusebius McKaiser, has accepted these terms at face value. He has ventured that the promise of a democratic South Africa is the prospect of a society NOT based on any form of essentialism. From this he has concluded that there are no “South Africans” and that the pursuit of such an entity is misconceived and irrelevant.

However, if South Africans do not exist, or cannot be brought into existence, the future is very gloomy indeed.

The promise of the Constitution is that South Africans most emphatically do exist or, at least, should exist.

South Africans are those people who have come together, not on the basis of a shared race or culture or religion or language, but on the basis of a shared commitment to democratic ideals and values. The essence of a South African, from the constitutional perspective, is a democrat.

This is why there is a growing and legitimate sense of malaise in South Africa. It is not that powerful and dangerous elements of the ANC seek to reintroduce essentialism back into South African politics. It is that they appeal to the wrong essentialism. They appeal to the essentialism of race and culture instead of to the essentials of the Constitution.

The problem is not one of essentialism, in other words. The problem is one of solidarity. How does one build social solidarity or social cohesion between former masters and servants? This is the question of the hour, no less important than defining South Africa’s new growth model. Such a project remains politically and also theoretically elusive.

For the philosopher of post-nationalism, Jurgen Habermas, the problem is that democratic principles are always highly abstract. They require individuals to deal with each other, not as they are empirically (of different competencies, intelligence, wealth, education and so on), but as they are in principle (of equal value).

This is a fragile basis for bonds between people, especially when they are separated by class, by language, by culture and so on. It explains why civic nationalism is in crisis in much of Europe. Since the election to the presidency of Barack Obama it has been, perhaps, resurrected in the US. But in South Africa it is not simply reconciling diversity that is at stake. What matters is overcoming a history of colonial domination.

For Habermas, the appeal to national culture was, historically, a way of cementing otherwise weak bonds. Religion, and Christianity in particular, plays a similar role for the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. Thankfully, the South African Constitution forbids such a tactic.

But it leaves the social challenge of South Africa unresolved. Social solidarity is being pursued by sections of the ANC by appealing to essentialist conceptions of blackness and whiteness. The foundations of South Africa’s democracy are called into question.

But democracy without solidarity is no less likely. South Africa’s constitutional norms of tolerance, respect and equality seem to be weakly embedded in its society. In other words, they do not serve as the basis of meaningful social bonds.

This is South Africa’s unique impasse.

The Constitution forbids founding solidarity on any “national” basis (ethnicity, race, culture or religion).

But democratic principles alone are not enough to overcome the legacy of violence and division. Hence South Africa’s see-saw political culture since 1994 – swinging between civic nationalism (non-racialism) and African nationalism. This is South Africa’s bind.

It seems unlikely that this tension will ever be resolved.

Perhaps, however, it can be transcended.

If South Africans exist to the degree that there can be social solidarity between former masters and servants, then it requires overcoming the historical divides between these groups.

Expelling or marginalising the white population cannot be the solution. Nor is glib multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism.

The only way forward, it seems to me, is to reduce the conditions under which South Africans grow up in worlds apart; that is, to reduce social inequality.

• Chipkin is the director of the Public Affairs Research Institute and the author of Do South Africans Exist?

Suren Pillay

Cape Times 2010-05-06

On a recent visit to a government agency- as a citizen, not a researcher- I began chatting with an affable front desk consultant. After some general conversation on the dire state of the world, she – of Afrikaner descent – confided to me that an Afrikaner savant has predicted the end of the universe in 2012. This savant also predicts that when Nelson Mandela dies, his body will lie in state in a glass coffin for seven days. On the eighth day, she whispered almost without sound, ‘the blacks will kill all the whites…’ Before I could wonder aloud why she was sharing this with me, someone who considers himself black, she elaborated, ‘then all the Indians…’ Suddenly I was transformed from potential perpetrator to fellow victim, and understood why she felt obligated to convey this humanitarian insight to me. Despite this oddly revealing anecdote, I also believe that twenty years after Nelson Mandela’s release, the pervasive allure of these genocidal visions have lost their grip. The current sputter of talk about a racialized civil war in some circles, occasioned by the murder of Eugene Terreblanche, is already slipping, unable to find traction in the wider society. The fear that once silenced private moments of doubt, and stiffened the sinews of public displays of kragdadigheid, has given way to other more pressing misgivings – about jobs and crime. Terreblanche’s death is being understood as such by most people, rather than part of a systematic erasure of whites. Gestures of reconciliation, including the disposition of Nelson Mandela and other liberation leaders and the acceptance of both African and South African political identities in post-apartheid society, has in the past allayed these fears for many white South Africans. Of course, these gestures also reflected a pragmatic political compromise with power. While certain relations have changed, others remain intact: political power has shifted, but economic power less so, producing only a small coterie of ‘black diamonds’. The killing of Eugene Terreblanche, whatever the story will be that will emerge in the trial, is also a brutal reminder of the structural violence, terror and humiliation that is the gristle of many interactions between farmers and farmworkers across the country. A 2008 study found that white workers earn on average 450% more than black workers. This and other research suggests persuasively that South Africa is the most unequal society in the world. However, citing these data often produces a predictable response: both black and white tend to experience these statistics as accusations and mutual incriminations. Progressives acknowledge and lament this reality, while others dispute it or deny any responsibility: ‘I never voted for apartheid’, ‘I was too young’, or ‘it was those Afrikaners’. Rather than being reconciled, these disputes show just how divided we remain. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was an important attempt to negotiate a collective future out of a conflicted past, and create a single political community based on acknowledgement and forgiveness. However, while the TRC – aligned with the international community – acknowledged apartheid as a ‘crime against humanity’, it focused primarily on the secondary violence that arose from the implementation of apartheid. This included a focus on violence committed by both state agents and anti-apartheid activists, but not on the system that legalised racial division and skewed access to resources. Two categories of people fell out of view along the way: the millions of victims, mostly black, of apartheid’s banal bureaucratic violence, and the lesser millions of predominantly-white beneficiaries of the system. Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani observed that whilst the TRC recognised the consequences of apartheid for millions, it only acknowledged some 20 000 ‘victims’ in the end, defined as those who experienced ‘gross violations of human rights’. It is worth pondering the questions this raises for us today, especially in the light of the legacy of land tenure dispossession and forced removals at the heart of our colonial past. In hindsight, we have to ask ourselves, has the meaning of ‘justice’ in post-apartheid South Africa been shaped, and limited, by the needs of ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ identified by the TRC? Notwithstanding those awaiting reparations, some of apartheid’s most visible victims now flagrantly relish ‘the good life’, as former liberation activists have become the faces of the new political and economic elite. Some former activists are self-righteous about the good life – as Smuts Ngonyama notoriously quipped, ‘we didn’t struggle to be poor’ – because it means justice for our struggle and sacrifice, years in exile, and languishing in prison. Is ‘the good life’ not justice then for the painful years under the anvil of the apartheid state, when Eugene De Kock’s men might come knocking in the night? Is it not justice, afterall, to ensure that comrades benefit from tenders, after a shared history of life-or-death moments pursuing a good cause? If apartheid’s victims and perpetrators are narrowed to numbers defined through the TRC, have we in the years after 1994 unconsciously come to believe that justice is served and deserved only by that few? And if perpetrators- the footsoldiers of the security apparatuses- have received either amnesty or jail terms, does this explain why many whites today can feel no further responsibility for apartheid’s legacy? Historically speaking, if most white citizens simply lived normal lives, raised families, worked hard in their jobs, and lived within the law, how – they ask – can they be accused of gross human rights violations? On the other hand, if apartheid’s black victims were only those who experienced beatings, torture and assassinations firsthand, couldn’t it follow that black beneficiaries of justice after apartheid might also be few? Is this picture not worryingly close to today’s reality? It is worth asking what might have been, and might be, if we instead think of apartheid crimes as the collective experience of millions. Rather than recognising or memorialising individuals, what then about the ordinary, unnamed victims who slumber in their thousands as statistics in our archives: the share-croppers and peasants wiped out by the 1913 Land Act, migrant workers wrenched from their families, the domestic workers who have mothered millions? The forebearers of those who continue to live that legacy in places like Ventersdorp. And for its beneficiaries, did apartheid not bequeath a legacy of racial privilege, cohesive suburban neighbourhoods, good schools, healthcare, and a path out of poverty based on a discriminatory system that turned colonial racism into law? What if we collectively embrace apartheid as that living legacy in the present? If apartheid’s wrong is the creation of this shared dilemma, how do we conceive of justice in a society marked by the co-existence of suffering for the majority, and a good life for a few old and new beneficiaries, rather than one of individual victims and perpetrators? What, then, are our past and present ethical responsibilities across racial and ethnic divides? Would we be jolted into more urgent actions to address apartheid’s overlooked victims, that vast majority ineligible for reparations through the TRC? That majority for whom a historical violence is still at work, assaulting the dignity of the self, and the integrity of the body. Would such a view of justice allow activists now-turned politicians and entrepreneurs to feel complacent and entitled to the good life, without experiencing a niggle of guilt? Would it encourage apartheid’s beneficiaries to join a conversation about a more equitable distribution of resources, both intellectual and economic, without responding defensively? Is it not time to create a form of justice then that truly addresses transformation, and counters growing perceptions that ‘transformation’ upholds old privilege by empowering only our struggle veteran ‘tenderpreneurs
’, and the young leaders being moulded by their example?

*Suren Pillay, of the HSRC and UWC, is co- editor (with Chandra Sriram) of ‘Truth vs Justice? The Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Africa, UKZN and James Currey Press, 2010. A version of this article appeared in the latest edition of the South African Reconciliation Barometer published by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

Date posted: 29 April 2010 on http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/472.1

One hundred and fifty years ago the first indentured Indians were brought to South Africa to work in sugar cane fields. They were soon joined by ‘passenger Indians’ who came of their own free will to trade.

The indentured Indians were not the first Indians to be brought to South Africa. On the contrary, a significant number of Indians were brought to the Cape Colony as slaves, but their descendents became part of the groups classified as White and Coloured under apartheid.

But, of course, the indentured Indians and the merchants that followed them were contained as a separate ‘race group’ by apartheid social engineering, and so developed a particular Indian identity. It is their experiences and achievements, which are being memorialised and celebrated in various events and publications being prepared to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured Indian workers in South Africa.

As the brilliant photographer and historian Omar Badsha recently observed in an important intervention in the Sunday Times, these attempts at memorialisation are taking very different trajectories.

It has been suggested that in common with other minorities, many Indians have responded to the perceived or potential ethnic chauvinism in South Africa by turning away from the nation towards a narrower conception of ethnic and religious identity. There is certainly a lot of truth in this observation, but we should recall that the Rainbow Nation ideal of the Mandela Presidency was already an ideal of a multi-racial rather than a non-racial society.

No doubt the role played by Mandela was an important one. A country as scarred as South Africa was after such a traumatic history, surely needed a project of nation building and social cohesion. However, the problem was that we had embraced a culture of multi-racialism rather than one of non-racialism. Experiments in popular non-racialism happened in the Black Consciousness and trade union movements but not much attention was paid to this.

The tradition of non-racialism has largely been abandoned in post-apartheid South Africa. It has even, to some degree, been written out of history. Young Indian students know more about the ethnic politics of the Natal and Transvaal Indian Congresses and nothing at all about the non-racialism of the Black Consciousness and Trade Union movements.  It is essential that we recuperate the memory of this non-racial politics and celebrate those who committed their lives to it.

The abandonment of the tradition of non-racialism has led to a situation where it is regularly assumed that Indians are a homogenous group whose support can be delivered by self proclaimed elite leaders. This is nonsensical.  What do some of the elite leaders have in common with grassroots activists who organise against evictions and disconnections in communities?

The fact is that the Indian community is deeply divided by class, with rich and poor living in totally different worlds. Poor Indians living in shacks have almost nothing in common with rich Indians living in mansions. There are also deep divisions in terms of religion, language and caste. And there are deep political divisions within the Indian community.

For a start, the attempts to portray the Indian community as uniformly committed to the anti-apartheid struggle are deliberately dishonest. As in all communities there was heroic resistance, outright collaboration and a large amount of political apathy. But it really is important that we begin to be open about this fact. We also need to be open about the fact that not all of the Indian opposition to apartheid was constituted on the basis of a popular non-racialism.

Furthermore there has long been a taboo on openly admitting the prevalence of anti-African racism within the Indian community. When African people raise this issue, Indian intellectuals and self appointed community leaders rush in to shut the debate down. But it is a debate that needs to be had. Some young Indian intellectuals who have been raising these debates need to be celebrated for their courage in surfacing them directly and fearlessly. If we don’t discuss Indian racism we can’t deal with it.

There are many Indians who courageously fought apartheid racism, and many Indians who in their more ordinary day-to-day lives exist far from the poison of racism. But it is also true that there are many Indians who seem to think that racism is a White disease and who, unthinkingly, engage in shockingly racist behaviour towards African people on a daily basis. Even within the community there is, in some quarters, a real prejudice against darker skinned Indians on the part of lighter skinned Indians. Indian racism is not always a question of Indian nationalism. There are many families that would welcome a White daughter or son-in-law with open arms, but who would not accept an African spouse for their child.

It’s not clear how the non-racialism cultivated in the Black Consciousness and trade union movements can be returned to the fore of civic life in contemporary South Africa. It still exists, of course, in the commitment, lives and work of many individuals. And it certainly still exists in some social movement politics. But the only thing that really seems to bind South Africans together these days is consumerism and the worship of bling. Consumerism can tie the children of the elites together, but for the majority who are not rich the culture of bling only compounds their sense of marginality and even desperation. The fact that so many young people are desperate is a real threat to nation building. There is always a grave risk that this desperation can be exploited by ethnic entrepreneurs hiding their fundamental complicity with racism behind the languages of culture, minority rights or even, on occasion, the left.

The turn to a politics of racial and ethnic chauvinism leave no space for the children of the Indian working class and the poor in general. No doubt the same is true for Coloured and White youth. For those of us who remain committed to non-racialism it is time to return to the trenches of struggle.

Imraan Buccus is Research Fellow in the School of Politics at University of KwaZulu Natal.

During the latter half of 2010, a series of events commemorating the 150^th

Anniversary of the first Indian indentured laborers in Natal will take place across South Africa. The preparations have already inspired wide-spread debate; individuals from a variety of communities and political perspectives have raised similar questions: to what extent does celebrating ‘Indian contributions’ to South African history falsely isolate the lives and struggles of Indian South Africans from other histories? Does celebrating an Indian past homogenize a story divided in many ways—by class, language, religion, caste, political loyalty and province? Who is authorized to speak as and for ‘the Indian South African community’? What role will individuals from other groups, particularly Africans, play in organizing these celebrations and discussions? What histories are in danger of being forgotten?

On the whole, the ‘150 years’ committees in the different provinces appear to have adopted one of three strategies. The first tact—which derives from a persistent sense that existing histories have marginalized Indians—centers on a heroic narrative of ‘Indian contributions’ to the anti-apartheid struggle and nation building. Concerned with the possibility of an anti-Indian backlash among certain sections of the ruling party, these organizers hope to counter increasing rhetorical attacks against minorities by establishing the centrality of Indians to the struggle for national liberation. The second approach seeks to highlight a political tradition of non-racial unity in order to demonstrate the ways that ‘Indian history’ is inseparable from a broader legacy of oppression and common social struggle. Suspicious of ghettoizing the events around ‘150 years’, this strategy emphasizes a broader South African rather than an Indian identity by celebrating political leaders, like Dr.  M.N. Naicker, who were critical in building the multi-racial Congress Alliance of 1950s. A third outlook largely avoids the question of South African Indian history altogether by shifting the focus to the past and present relations between India and South Africa: a celebratory narrative of bilateralism that risks sidestepping an open discussion on race and racism in post-apartheid South Africa. At the same time, this heavy emphasis on India’s contributions to the anti-Apartheid struggle speaks to a broad desire to accentuate connections between India and the diaspora.

Whatever their different strengths, these narratives do not go far enough in confronting the most difficult question facing South Africa’s historians: the urgent need to desegregate the past—writing histories that transcend the racial framing of ‘African’, ‘Indian’, and ‘Coloured’–without denying the reality of persistent divisions and differences among those oppressed by colonialism and the Apartheid system. The central problem with the one-sided celebration of ‘Indian contributions’ is that it rests on the image of a collective, racial heritage, and this assumption often feeds back into different forms of anti-Indian racism. Like with every other ‘national group,’ some individuals gave their lives to end apartheid while others collaborated with the regime; some worked to overcome racial divisions while many enriched themselves by exploiting other sectors of the oppressed; some embraced and others rejected the racial or tribal identities promoted by the Nationalist government. Versions of history that whitewash these intractable realities breed cynicism. They are often interpreted as an effort by members of one group to assert separateness and advance a narrowly self-serving agenda.

A more adequate history would seek to accomplish four things. First, it would do justice to the immense diversity of South Asian cultures and experiences in South Africa. It would include Indian slaves in the Western Cape as well as indentured labor in Natal and ‘Passengers’ (migrants who came of their own accord) throughout the country, exploring the many convergences and divergences between Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi-speaking and other communities. It would also honestly address prejudices and class hierarchies that existed—and continue to exist—between different sections of the Indian population, including the situation of post-1994 South Asian migrants who often face tremendous exploitation and hostility in predominantly Indian areas. Second, a more rigorous history would openly discuss the forms of mutual distrust, stereotypes, and even racism that persist throughout South African society. In the context of the ‘150 years celebration’, special attention should be given to the history of African/Indian racial dynamics in Natal. Within the anti-apartheid movement, the issue of racism among the oppressed was either taboo or superficially handled: the assumption was sometimes that, after liberation, the problems of chauvinism and inequality would solve themselves. Under the new dispensation, the question of anti-Indian or anti-African prejudice within black communities has occasionally exploded in public controversy (for example, around Mbongeni Ngema’s song amaNdiya), but it has never been fully confronted in a sustained discussion that draws in intellectuals, activists, trade unionists and community members from across the racial divide. Finally, a better history would take a more critical attitude towards past efforts to build social and political unity, exploring their failures as well as celebrating successes.

However, the anxieties around ‘150 years’ are not just about history, but also reflect the rapidly changing political situation, particularly the aggressive assertion of a racialist nationalism by sections of the ANC Youth League and its open attacks against minorities inside and outside the government. While anti-Indian attitudes have a long history in the Youth League stretching back to Anton Lembede, this resurgence has its basis in the rise of an aspirant African bourgeoisie, which remains heavily depended on the state and seeks to weaken constraints on its ability to further accumulate wealth. Hence, it employs racial demagoguery to attack sections of the alliance it perceives as political obstacles, particularly the SACP and COSATU. Unfortunately, the Youth League’s fetid soundings ring true to many ears precisely because of the enormous privilege that white, Indian and—to a much lesser extent—coloured South Africans tenaciously maintain as groups. Until very recently, the response to this rhetorical onslaught has been rather muted both within and outside the ANC (besides, of course, from the Afrikaner right). The events organized around ‘150 years’ thus have a substantial opportunity. They should strive to broaden out from a narrowly ‘Indian’ discussion, draw in the broadest possible range of participants, and use the rich and varied histories of Indians within South Africa to confront the challenge posed by the new anti-minority chauvinism. Otherwise, the ‘150 years’ celebrations run the risk of feeding back into this very phenomenon by once again reiterating sweeping, racial narratives that artificially partition South Africa’s complicated and entangled past.

Dr Jon Soske is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, based at Wits University

Omar Badsha is CEO of South African History Online (SAHO)

The death of Eugene Terreblanche and the racial rousing that Malema stokes, brings out from the underbelly of racial and ethnic discord, the remnant question – can we ever be a nation?

Terreblanche’s death and these war songs also come at a time when the world will soon be descending upon South Africa to witness our multiplicity of tongues, religions, races, natural beauty and the conspicuous divide between rich and poor, as they feast their eyes on a spectacular display of the world’s best football talent.

The question of national identity also arises because not so a long back, President Jacob Zuma asked where all the Whites were when national days and events were being celebrated.

There was a noticeable feeling of absence and a void of affiliation with the celebrations, dreams and hopes of the majority.

This is not the only reason we should be concerned about the state of our nationhood. In the juncture between 1994 and now – a time passing faster than memory can hold – the idea of whether a nation has been constituted or not is indeed vexing minds.

The early days of our democracy were marked by a sense of intense rumination, as if the conclusion of peace between races would provide clarity and direction. Movies like Invictus breed a certain raw nostalgia for the idea that was supposed to be in the making, but did not quite reach fruition — perhaps it invites, too, a childlike naivety.

And of course, since then, the idea of a Rainbow Nation is long dead. It was a nice idea at the time. It had a touch of sentimentality and a metaphor that hoped to capture the essence of a nation made. But this was also its mistake. It takes more than a metaphor to make a nation.

What, then, constitutes the idea of a nation and how can one imagine our cohesiveness evolving — if at all? Why this question? Why even the foolishness of the idea? Is a whole nation even possible?

Are we always meant to agree? And, is the fact that we are so different, precisely not the seed of a myriad projects and wills claiming to be in the interest of nationhood and national identity?

As of yet, it would be best to say that we are prospective South Africans, not full South Africans.

Somewhere between Mandela and the present idea of a united South Africa, things went sour.

First, it would seem that we must agree to travel on the same path before we can agree to be one nation that evades the old divisions of race, class and religion.

This at once raises questions about the nation’s conception.

Collectively, we are bound by a common geography; there is a constitution that frames the ethos within which we must work together and our statehood has received affirmation in the internationally recognised United Nations system.

However, despite all these niceties, how we function, as a whole, will ultimately determine our fate. And while this country’s human inhabitants either seek or refuse to discover each other, its physical and natural state will persist, as it’s human inhabitants come and go.

Therefore, the culture that we foster between us is the vital glue for continuity.

For now, though, we are a nation both inwardly and outwardly schizophrenic and suffering from a tendency towards multiple personalities — disorders that can leave outsiders a bit perplexed.

When there is no collective cognitive leap, the recourse is to find security in ethnic and racial enclaves. And so it becomes the world of closed communities and minds that inform the body politic. It’s an irresistible reflex that we are more habituated to than not.

When people are drawn back to their dissociations and to the ill body of a fractured nation; feelings of patriotism suffer the blow of reality’s cold hand and we are driven – for whatever reason – to our enclaves, our closed communities and minds.

It would be incorrect to suggest that all nations are not subject to the fluidity of identity. This is where some of our naïve ideas must end.

Even in homogeneous societies, inter-generational differences can shift a national mood. National identity is not meant to be static.

These tensions are starting to be felt in Europe and the United States (US) — both countries long thought to be stable entities and sources of identity.

The South of the US is increasingly become Latino in which Spanish is already the first language of choice. At the same time, Anglo-Saxon legal and political institutions sit on shaky pedestals. It was only in the 1960’s that some black Americans started feeling that they were no longer second-class citizens.

In the US, at least, nationhood is constantly evolving.

The churning heat of resistance from the bottom as well as assaults against the existing order can only be kept at bay in ethnically, ideologically, racially and religiously divided societies when there is a single hegemonic power over ideas and political, legal and economic institutions.

But, instead of making a nation, this may be suppressing its birth.

What binds us in the future will be less the tongue we speak, the race we belong to or the religion we follow. It will be how we transcend all of this to the language of a new humanism.

This, though, will have to break the very irresistible temptation for the logic of class, race, religion and ethnicity. Once these are rooted, they throw up the demon of self-interest within the realm of nationhood or nation.

The idea of “nation” is only valid in so far as it serves a doctored form of nationhood, viz., the interests of a very narrow group, which quintessentially already mistrusts everything and everyone around it.

Nations, it would seem, must go through periods of stability, crisis and reinvention before a new thesis emerges.

In reading history, somewhat disappointingly, one finds more proof of this cycle of uneasiness with what constitutes national identity, than ideas of nationhood that have stood the test of time without contest, chaos and upheaval.

However, what one also finds is that what holds things together is good leadership. In our case, this would not be leadership that decries ‘the war song’ on an ad hoc basis, especially if all it does is produce a sullied political atmosphere.

If, the idea of nationhood is to work it must come from the acceptance of difference. Part of nationhood is to have a healthy and rich respect for diversity, vigorous defence of different views and living in the absence of fear.

South Africa’s nationhood will always be exemplified by its differences, but it is the ethos within which this unfolds that will give a unique character to our nationhood. It’s a project that needs to be kept alive.

A new type of racial chauvinism, which is cynical and purposefully directed for the sole logic of acquisition, is sure to divide an already fractured nation, rather than win the nation.

These signs must be read, as they signal a need for change in tack or all will be doom and gloom. And, we can kiss the project of nationhood goodbye.

This rticle was first published on www.sacsis.org.

At the height of the battle between Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky, the former was doing everything in his power to ensure that Lenin’s mantle passed on to him.

In later years, having won the struggle, Stalin went to the extreme lengths of airbrushing Trotsky out of photographs in which he shared a stage with Lenin and clearly appeared as the right-hand man. It was an extreme case of the rewriting of history, something that is practised the world over for political expediency.

South Africa is currently experiencing a mini-version of this rewriting of the history of our transition. The greatest casualty of this, as always, is the truth. The truth that one generation leaves behind for its descendants.

With the soiling of truth and memory you also harm the lessons that future generations can take from current generations. When history is distorted for whatever reason they can never know how we solved the problems of our time and what wisdom they can take from us.

Take the recent attempts, gaining currency in the ANC, to credit PW Botha rather than FW as being the Nat who made the leap out of the laager.

In his state of the nation address President Jacob Zuma made no bones about which apartheid leader he believed opened the way for change.

“Allow me to mention the role played by former President PW Botha. It was he who initiated the discussion about the possible release of political prisoners. President Botha worked with the former Minister of Justice, Mr Kobie Coetsee, who was in turn assisted by Dr Neil Barnard and Mr Mike Louw. They played a significant role in the process leading to the release of Madiba,” he said.

Zuma then went on to say that Botha had initiated the process “that laid the groundwork for the historic announcements by President FW de Klerk, 20 years ago”. In passing, he praised De Klerk for his “courage and decisive leadership”.

In the past fortnight Zuma has, along with some leaders of the ruling party, been actively playing down De Klerk’s role in the transition and, strangely, upping Botha’s role instead.

Now I hold no brief for De Klerk. We all know he was on the verkrampte wing of the National Party in the ’80s. And that it was during his tenure as president that elements of the apartheid state, in cahoots with Inkatha and other surrogate formations, unleashed horrendous violence on black communities.

But it was he who recognised in 1989 that the whole apartheid project just was not sustainable, and that the state would ultimately collapse in the face of mass resistance and international pressure.

It took vision and boldness to set the country on a path that would result in the demise of his party’s raison d’être: white supremacy. But now that he has emerged as a rallying point and a champion for groups fighting for the rights of the Afrikaans language, his role in history is being doctored.

Emphasis is now being placed on the fact that Botha approved initial contact between his lieutenants and ANC leaders in exile and on Robben Island.

Conveniently overlooked is the fact that Botha imposed Draconian states of emergency and put in place the state death squads that sought to prevent democracy ever dawning. In his heyday, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the Augusto Pinochets of this world.

An even greater crime being committed is the writing of Thabo Mbeki out of history. In the same speech in which Botha was lauded, there was not a single mention of Mbeki. This thing of pretending Mbeki did not exist has been a pattern in the past year or so.

Yes, during his presidency Mbeki did some horrible things and caused great pain to this nation, for which many will find it very difficult to forgive him.

But to pretend that the man who was at OR Tambo’s side during the heady ’80s, and who was a key emissary, played an insignificant role is to distort reality.

Mbeki’s role in secret contact with South African agents in the late ’80s is well-documented. As is his role in the talks with the white South African academics, businessmen and civil society who trekked to Lusaka and other African capitals to hear the ANC’s side of the story.

Those talks softened white opinion-makers’ attitude to the ANC, and by the time the unbannings happened, the organisation had been somewhat de-demonised in those circles.

I’m sure those who seek to write Mbeki out of history have their reasons.

For many, revenge is more than ousting him from power. He has to be slowly deleted from memory. The narrative of the transition had to change so that he can feel the pain while he is still alive. This rewriting is subtle and carefully implemented.

Now that is dangerous. If you start fiddling with history in that manner, there is no telling where it will stop.

Representations of the Robben Island Museum in the public domain have over the past five months been characterised by confusing commentary, accumulating unanswered questions, significant omissions and even serious misrepresentation.  This opinion piece is in the interest of a beleaguered institution that continues to incur reputational damage that it emphatically does not deserve.  It is also in the interest of preserving my reputation and the reputations of the many people who made positive and lasting contributions to the museum during my tenure from July 2008 to May 2009.

A media statement last week, by the Democratic Alliance (Cape Times, 2 November 2009, Craig McKune) is reported as expressing “grave concern” about the “worsening state” of Robben Island.  The DA fears that the site risks losing its world heritage site status as a result of “continuing poor management” of the Robben Island Museum.  This alarming view is presented as obvious – part of a continuous downward trend that is in no need of substantiation.  No evidence is provided, no documentation referred to and no ‘powerful microscope’ is brought to bear on the matter.  The museum’s latest annual report, which reflects a significant turnaround of organisational performance, is ignored entirely.  Also ignored is the January 2009 report to the World Heritage Council which sets out extensive conservation and tourism improvements that secure Robben Island’s World Heritage Site status.

The 2008/9 annual report does not claim that the museum achieved a perfect state especially in regard to its audit outcomes which require further remedial work.  Apart from this, the report reflects an organisational turnaround and performance outcomes that are significant by any standard.  Particularly if one considers that these were achieved in a short timeframe under challenging organisational and economic conditions.

• Financial performance improved by R27,6m resulting in a surplus of R11m for the year.  This follows an operating deficit (before bailout funding) of R16,6m for 2007/8 and a deficit of R27,5m for 2006/7.
• The museum’s own revenue increased by 17% and total revenue increased by 38%.
• Gross ticket sales increased by 20%.  Net ticket sales (after payments of external ferry commissions) increased by 67%.
• Visitor numbers increased by 26% over the period following the November 2008 maintenance shut-down.
• Operating expenses (excluding staff costs) reduced by 7% and overall expenses reduced by 1%.
• The audit outcome was improved from a disclaimer to a qualified report.

Similarly, a major drive was undertaken to address the pressing conservation deficits that had developed over the preceding years.  A range of projects were accelerated and completed in the ten months between August 2008 and May 2009:

• Major restoration of the Maximum Security Complex, the Sobukwe Complex and the Administration Buildings on the Island.
• Refurbishment of the Nelson Mandela Gateway Building, the M-Berth Loading Dock and the Murray’s Harbour Buildings.
• Refurbishment of the historic vessels Diaz, Susan Kruger and the Blouberg.
• The restructuring of the Mayibuye Archives including staffing, improved archival practice and the installation of climate controls and fire protection.
• A ‘capture-and-euthanase’ culling project to bring the rabbit overpopulation under control.
• Improved general conservation of the natural environment including projects directed at avifauna, vegetation, poaching management, waste management and coastal cleanups.
• Several exhibitions were developed and installed: a Peter Magubane photo-exhibition; the Autshumato 350 exhibition; a Commemoration of Mike Terry; and, the Robert Sobukwe exhibition and launch of the Sobukwe Complex.
• Several education campaigns were undertaken: the African Programme in Museum and Heritage Studies in conjunction with the University of the Western Cape; the 2009 Election Education Campaign; and, special programmes that reached thousands of school children.

On the tourism front the following key improvements were implemented.

• Resolution of all outstanding issues on Sikhululekile, the primary passenger vessel.
• Acquisition of eight new buses for improved public transport on the Island.
• Redesign of the museum’s website.
• Installation of a new, web-based ticketing system that resolved longstanding administrative and services issues.

The restructuring process was supported by DAC, the Council, the Audit Committee, the majority of employees and many other stakeholders who were kept informed of developments and consulted on many occasions.  There can be no doubt that through a collective effort the museum had been placed on a much firmer foundation financially, operationally and museologically than has been the case for several years.

In light of all this positive, credible information it is difficult to make sense of the shroud of secrecy that has been drawn over the 2008/9 annual report and the World Heritage Council report.  What makes this difficult is that the shroud is being drawn, so to speak, by the museum itself!  No media statement was issued after the annual report was tabled in Parliament in early September 2009; to my knowledge, the report has only been provided to a few persistent journalists.  Neither do these important reports feature on the home page of the museum’s website.  Why is the Robben Island Museum light being hidden under a bushel?

The ‘new management’, Jatti Bredekamp, has instead focused media relations and management effort on “stabilising the situation”, on “clarifying reporting structures… and improving staff relations” and more recently on the “rabbit crisis”.  When the Island’s ferry experienced technical problems in September, it was pointed out that “the new management cannot be held responsible” as it had only been in place for a few months.  And it was pointed out in October that the museum was “operating since April [2009] without an approved budget or a strategic management plan”.

When he became Interim CEO of the museum in July, Bredekamp clearly accepted a difficult task in the wake of my resignation and the resignation of the museum’s entire Council.  At that stage I empathised with him and understood why he felt the need to call on divine assistance.  However, the management approach that is now being adopted is, in my view, highly questionable because it proliferates and exacerbates negative perceptions of the museum while playing down what is positive.  A primary task of responsible management is to protect the reputation of the institution even as it works to resolve internal challenges.

Firstly, media statements by the museum that there are currently “25 000 to 30 000 rabbits on the Island” are questionable.  On the basis of rigorous transect studies by UCT’s Animal Demography Unit these estimates appear to be overstated.  The UCT study estimated the number of rabbits to be about 5 000 in March 2009, by which time over 3 000 animals had been culled.  According to the unit’s director a more recent UCT study estimates the number at about 6 000 animals.  This is still a high number and there is no doubt that most of the rabbits have to be removed in order to restore ecological balance on the Island.  However, the UCT estimates suggest that there is not the ‘crisis’ that is being reported and that the earlier capture-and-euthanase project had contributed to reducing the rabbit population.  It is worrying, given the high reputational risk involved, that the current culling process was planned and initiated without consulting the UCT Animal Demography Unit or its estimates.

Secondly, the claim that the museum did not have an approved budget and strategic management plan is simply untrue.  A three-year strategic plan which included operational and CAPEX budgets was developed and approved by the museum’s Council in March 2009.  It was also presented to the DAC in March and formally submitted to the DAC Institutional Governance Unit on 26 March. Implementation of the 2009/10 strategy commenced immediately thereafter with formal S189 consultation sessions with the union about the implementation of the new organisation structure, and contemplated retrenchments, as set out in the plan.  I am aware that Bredekamp was given a copy of the strategic plan when he was appointed.

Sadly, the Robben Island Museum suffers reputational damage both locally and abroad as a result of undeserved negative public representations.  A BBC report (currently on the BBC website) quotes Helen Bamford who, in turn, relies on the questionable estimates that there are “25 000 to 30 000 rabbits” to support her view that the island is “in crisis”.  But, it is the ‘new management’s’ own statements – and silences – that lend credibility to both the DA’s and Bamford’s damaging assertions.  If the ‘new management’ and DAC do not defend the Robben Island Museum, even when solid defences are available, who will?  Who is batting for the Robben Island Museum?

Perhaps Robben Island is regarded by some as providing personal and political opportunities.  The pursuit of opportunity is not problematic in itself, but it has tragic consequences when pursued in a manner that, perversely, requires that the museum and the site be represented – and often misrepresented – as continuously crisis-ridden.  In such a misalignment of interests the meanings of Robben Island and the museum are twisted and perverted irrespective of the facts or any evidence to the contrary.

As a memorial to the 350-year South African Liberation Struggle, Robben Island is our foremost cultural heritage site.  The Robben Island Museum, the Department of Arts and Culture, the Western Cape Provincial government and the City of Cape Town are all in various ways entrusted with custodianship of this iconic site of memory.  In this view, it is crucial that Robben Island be located above the political fray and beyond personal ambitions.  This does not mean, however, that the museum and its practices are above fair critique.

I appeal to the Democratic Alliance to honestly reassess its approach to Robben Island; to refrain from using the museum as a political punch-bag; to look beyond its mere tourism value; and, then to constructively pursue its suggestion that the province and city should get more involved in ensuring that the museum is properly managed.  I appeal to the DAC to realise the importance of the meanings and representations of Robben Island and its effect on South African self-perceptions; that ‘arms length’ does not mean ‘look the other way and hope for the best’; and, that it should appoint a new Council and CEO as a matter of urgency.  Finally, I appeal to the museum’s interim new management to realign its personal interests with the more important reputational interests of Robben Island and the museum; perhaps it will be found that these interests are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Long live the values of Robben Island!

Seelan Naidoo is the former Interim CEO of the Robben Island Museum.

He writes in his personal capacity.

Yusuf Dadoo’s legacy is our tradition of non-racialism, writes Yunus Momoniat

AT A conference last week, delegates mulled over the legacy of Yusuf Dadoo, a leader of the Transvaal Indian Congress, a communist leader and respected activist. The key theme of the conference was the question of non-racialism and Dadoo’s contribution to the birth of a non-racial tradition in South Africa.

Today we tend to take for granted the non-racialism of the policies of the ANC and other political organisations that struggled against segregation and apartheid, but speakers at the conference set out the history of the concept and pointed to the difficulties of its birth in the late 1950s and 1960s. The ANC did not admit non-Africans into its ranks until its Morogoro Conference in 1969, and until then it effectively practised a policy of multiracialism. In this scenario, whites were tasked with organising other whites, Indians other Indians and coloureds other coloureds in their respective Congress organisations, which fell under the umbrella of the Congress Alliance.

But even today, not everyone in the ANC is convinced that non-racialism is the way forward. African nationalists, especially, question the policy, and noises have been made about the deployment of non-Africans in government positions.

According to professor David Everatt, South Africa’s inability to resolve the question of non- racialism is partly due to the fact that the concept is undefined, and that this was the case even when the liberation movements were struggling with the issue in the 1950s and 1960s.

The debates of the 1950s addressed the difference between multiracialism and non-racialism, the place of class struggle in relation to the struggle for national liberation, and the place of whites in the struggle. Africanists argued that multiracialism was “designed by white communists in the Congress of Democrats to secure a disproportionate influence over the ANC”.

It was the Communist Party, both before and after it was banned in 1950 (after which the CPSA became the SACP), that became one of the first organisations to practise non-racialism: by the 1940s people of all races could belong to the party. White communists who belonged to the Congress of Democrats were uncomfortable with the ANC’s multiracial policy, and they felt that “the struggle for equal rights for all races was obscuring the ‘real’ struggle, which was class based”.

Trotskyites, Africanists and liberals all lamented that white communists, perceived as being over-represented in the Congress Alliance, were able to “lead the organisation by the nose”. Ultra-left critics scorned the Alliance’s focus on national liberation rather than class struggle. Africanists argued that non-Africans had expelled Africans from their true home, the ANC. Attempts in 1958 by the ANC leadership to resolve the disputes failed and led to the birth of the PAC.

Much of the debate is being echoed today, when questions are raised about whether non-Africans can represent the interests of Africans, or whether Africans are able to represent other Africans merely because they belong to the same race — many have argued that Africans in government have failed to use their positions to improve the lives of African people.

Turning to the political scene after 1994, Everatt notes that the predictions of the far-left critics of nationalism seem to have come true, where “[former] ANC leaders defend instant wealth because ‘we did not struggle to remain poor’”. The left critics had warned that “class struggle would be postponed indefinitely by a national bourgeoisie anxious to maximise personal wealth and advancement at the expense of the urban and rural poor”.

Everatt argues that non- racialism is a more or less empty concept, without any proactive moral content, and has “retreated into the realm of the private” rather than being societal and public. He argues that there is no obvious way of being non-racial. The challenge, he says, is to “find the courage to decisively break with the past, to dispense with racial pigeon-holing and create a new discourse free of the defects of the old, racial mind-set”.

He sees nationalism and non-racialism as mutually exclusive, but other delegates at the conference disagreed, and debate was vigorous as well as rigorous. Dadoo was acknowledged as one of the earliest proponents of non-racialism, as someone who worked all his life to render race unimportant.

Blade Nzimande, at the conference in his capacity as general secretary of the SACP, lauded Dadoo, saying he was “an Indian, but he was part of the political majority, a man who fought in the trenches for the liberation of South Africa”.

# The conference was organised by the website South African History Online, as part of a new series on liberation heroes, in conjunction with the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Sociological Research.

Too much emphasis on suffering and sacrifice can leave a hard residue of victimhood and entitlement

We Are a nation-in-the-making and we cannot afford to squander our assets.

Our knowledge about ourselves — our identity as a nation — depends on our understanding of our past and how others see us.

It’s worrisome that the study of our history takes such a low priority in our educational institutions.

When we meet people, they identify us by their admiration for Nelson Mandela, the “miracle” of our negotiated transition and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Such encounters make us flush with a sense of what it means to be South African.

These issues should be the entry points for us, young and old, to embark on the journey to know our past.

Is this happening? Our universities are not giving our transition serious attention. The little that is being done fails to take advantage of the assets at hand.

Consider the participants in our transition: when will our universities tap into this rich vein where memories jostle, interpretations are made to square with evidence, evidence is challenged, and our past bristles with energy and life?

Many of them are invited to seminars and conferences abroad, even to advise those involved in national conflicts. But I have yet to hear of an SA university inviting any of them to deliver and defend a set of lectures to postgraduate students. (Postgrads because it may dissuade them from delivering off-the-cuff chats!)

Who would not give an arm and a leg to attend a series of such lectures on our transition by the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa, Roelf Meyer, Frank Mdlalose, Colin Eglin, Zam Titus, Pravin Gordhan, Leon Wessels, Thabo Mbeki, Valli Moosa, Patricia de Lille, Arthur Chaskalson, Jay Naidoo, Mbhazima Shilowa, Ben Ngubane, Tertius Delport, Neil Barnard, Albie Sachs, Kader Asmal, Mathews Phosa, Tony Leon, Penuell Maduna, Jacob Zuma, Constand and Braam Viljoen, and, yes, Pik Botha?

And let’s have Fanie van der Merwe, Theuns Eloff, Janet Love, Hassen Ebrahim, Gillian Hutchins and Mac Maharaj in the audience supplying them with minutes and documents to jog or disturb their memories!

What a moving feast, missing only Joe Slovo and his red socks!

Use them soon or we will lose them forever.

If this is the state of play at our universities, what does it mean for our teacher training? How shall teachers inspire and share knowledge of our past with their students?

Much painstaking cataloguing, indexing and digitising of records in museums and libraries is going on.

But there is a pressing need to contextualise and decode many of these records, especially those of organisations that were engaged in the liberation struggle.

This can only be done by those who did the recording or were close to the recorders. There is no single person around who can do it. The skills can’t be acquired by training.

It’s a matter of deciphering, for example, a cryptic entry in the diary of the late Oliver Tambo, or codenames for people and events in the minutes of ANC structures or in letters written by apartheid’s prisoners.

Unless this task is taken up now, much of the information in the records will become meaningless.

It may be too late already.

There is some stunning work being done with regard to the gathering of memories and oral testimonies.

This was given a tremendous boost by the work of the TRC.

But it brings with it its own problems.

Ask anyone what aspect of our past sticks out in their recollections of the TRC and the chances are it will be the pain caused by apartheid and its inhumanity; and our capacity to forgive and reconcile.

Our identity should embrace not only the experience of this pain, but also the pride of standing up to injustice.

Above all, our identity needs an appreciation that resistance and struggle nurtured our capacity to reconcile.

Talk to an American and the chances are that he or she will extol the visionary spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

Talk to the French and you will sense the pride in a revolution that gave France and the world the resounding proclamation “liberty, equality and fraternity”.

Too much emphasis on suffering, sacrifice and the nobility of forgiveness can leave a hard residue of victimhood and entitlement.

If we want to walk tall we have to draw on a sense of self-esteem that does not radiate only from the evils of apartheid but from the comradeship of struggle, from standing up for something larger than one’s self-interest, from giving of ourselves for the sake of others.

It’s time to raise the status of history in the shaping of our national psyche, and for our institutions of learning to act on the basis that they hold our past in their hands.

With Shell having agreed an out-of-court settlement of $15.5 million with the families of the Ogoni Nine activists killed in 1995, Sokari Ekine and Firoze Manji argue that a victory should not be confused with justice. Though representative of an emerging movement in bringing a multinational to the brink of a trial, the questions over the Niger Delta region and Shell’s atrocious environmental and human rights records remain, with the company admitting no liability for its actions. We must continue to support the numerous trials against Shell still carrying on, Ekine and Manji contend, and ensure that widespread discussion helps establish broader justice for the Ogoni people and all those suffering from multinational and governmental exploitation in Nigeria and beyond.

‘And as I was going, I was just thinking how the war have spoiled my town Dukana, uselessed many people, killed many others, killed my mama and my wife, Agnes, my beautiful young wife with J.J.C and now it have made me like porson wey get leprosy because I have no town again.

‘And I was thinking how I was prouding before to go to soza and call myself Sozaboy. But now if anybody say anything about war or even fight, I will just run and run and run and run and run. Believe me yours sincerely.’ Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sozaboy

Thirteen years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr and the families of the eight other Ogoni men who had been murdered by the Nigerian state in 1995, together with two other Ogonis, began three separate law suits against Royal Dutch Petroleum, Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) and Brian Anderson, the former CEO of the SPDC. The plaintiffs accused Shell of human rights abuses against the Ogoni people, of arming the Nigerian army and of being complicit in the extrajudicial killing of the Ogoni Nine in 1995. The trial against Shell was due to start on 26 May, but was then delayed indefinitely. On Tuesday 9 June 2009, we learned that Shell had settled the case out of court for a sum of $15.5 million, which included a $5 million contribution to a trust for the Ogoni people. The settlement was offered with no admission of liability from the defendant. While the settlement is being seen as a victory for human rights, it raises a number of worrying issues in law suits by local indigenous communities against multinationals who are committing human rights violations and environmental crimes.

It is impossible to separate the actions of the oil multinationals operating across the Niger Delta from the actions of the Nigerian government in the region. The relationship between the two, though complex, is based on profit over and above any other consideration. In exchange for the oil removed from the Niger Delta, the oil companies, with the support of the Nigerian state, have left behind an ecological disaster, reducing whole towns and villages to rubble, causing death by fire and pollution, and leaving behind the guns of the Nigerian military. Shell and the other oil companies in the region have one of the worst environmental records in the world. This includes pollution of the air and drinking water, the degradation of farm land, damage to aquatic life, the disruption of drainage systems, and oil fires, which have left people dead and with horrific burn injuries and no medical care. The causes of the damage to the environment are oil spills from pipelines and flow stations – with many of the former running through villages and in front of people’s homes – and gas flaring, which produces toxic gases and releases poisons into the atmosphere.

The late Professor Claude Ake, who was killed in a plane crash in 1996, used the term ‘the militarisation of commerce’ to describe the relationship between Shell and the Nigerian military government. What he was referring to was the unholy alliance which led to the collaboration between Shell and the military in planning the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine and thousands of others that have been maimed and killed since 1990. Though Ake was referring to the military government of the late Sani Abacha, little has changed since 1995, despite the country’s so-called ‘democracy’. On the contrary: more violence has been unleashed under the governments of Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua than under military dictatorships. Only a month ago the Joint Task Force for the Niger Delta (JTF) of the Nigerian military, under the pretext of rooting out militants who were supposed to be hiding in the creeks, launched a violent, sustained attack of collective punishment on communities in the region, this time on the Warri South West communities. The numbers of the dead are not yet known, but estimates run between a few hundred and a few thousand, with some 25,000 displaced. Young men are particularly at risk. They are the ones who in the past have being picked up by the JTF on the pretence that they are militants, when in fact their only crime is that they are just young men.

It is in this context that we need to view the settlement agreed between the families of the Ogoni Nine and Shell. The emotional drain on the plaintiffs in this case cannot be underestimated and at some point they all need to be able to rebuild their lives and look to the future. There is also no doubt that this is a victory in that it brought a multinational to the brink of trial. This is no small feat. It is representative of an emerging movement that has successfully called multinationals to account for their actions. The case adds to the legal precedent set by the Bowoto v. Chevron trial last year (the plaintiffs lost the case), and reinforces the fact that US-registered companies who commit atrocities overseas can be brought to trial, even if justice is not meted out in every case. At the same time, we need to be aware that despite the courts in Nigeria awarding $1.5 billion against Shell to the Ijaw Aborigene of Bayelsa State, Shell has so far refused to pay out. This is clearly a reflection of the complete disdain and lack of respect shown by multinational companies towards decisions of the courts in Nigeria.

This case was brought by the families of the Ogoni Nine and not on behalf of the Ogoni people. How much of a victory is this, and what are the implications for the other law suits against Shell and possibly other oil companies operating in Nigeria? The sum of $15.5 million, while constituting a considerable amount to the plaintiffs, is but a drop in the ocean of oil for Shell. Although legally the settlement includes a non-admission of guilt by Shell, there is some grounds for celebration by the Ogoni Nine, since the general public will draw its own conclusions as to the significance of Shell’s out-of-court settlement. But the settlement also sends out the message that oil companies can seemingly buy impunity for the price of one day’s worth of Ogoni, Ijaw or Itsekiri oil.

While the families of the Ogoni Nine can celebrate a partial victory and breathe a sigh of relief from the fact that the years of anxiety and hard work in bringing the case to court are now over, it is hard not to think that there will remain a bitter after-taste of polluted waters, poisoned rivers, noxious gases, toxic fumes and destroyed communities living under stress and exploitation – a burden to be borne by the Ogoni people over decades. The destruction of their communities and environment has to be laid at the doors of both multinational corporations like Shell and the Nigerian state.

That Shell were forced to pay – albeit without an admission of guilt – is a victory of sorts. But we should be careful, in the euphoria of the moment, not to confuse that victory with justice. It is justice neither for the families of the Ogoni Nine or for the Ogoni people. That struggle for justice, and the bringing to justice of those who carry out such crimes, remains the task of the day. Like the Ogoni struggle begun by Ken Saro-Wiwa – which became the inspiration for other Niger Delta nationalities to demand justice and equity from the oil companies and Nigerian State – this trial was also an inspiration to others and as such was always bigger than just the plaintiffs’ case. We should remember that right now both the military violence and environmental abuse continue to destroy people’s lives. The final question is whether Shell, Elf, Mobil and Chevron will now be motivated to clean up their mess, or will things simply remain the same?

There are a number of other outstanding cases against Shell in Nigeria, including a class action suit by the Ogoni people. It is unlikely that they will be offered an out-of-court settlement and we owe a duty to the Ogoni people to ensure that justice is done, and seen to be done, by ensuring widespread public discussion about and support for their struggles for justice.

‘Sleep Well, Ken
And smile at your killers
For though a few feet underground
The struggle you started continues’
Danson Kahyana

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks.
* Firoze Manji is editor in chief of Pambazuka News.
* Details of the trial and settlement can be viewed at wiwavshell.org/wiwa-v-shell-victory-settlement/.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/